In 1996, Rick Ross’ role in Hip-Hop was simply a fan. Living in Miami, no doubt pushing to the limit, Ross felt understood when listening to the struggles of Tupac Shakur on All Eyez on Me and Makaveli. “The Boss,” as Ross calls himself, was emotionally affected upon the loss of rap’s most colorful character.

A decade later, Rick Ross is among the brightest new stars in the game. However, some could argue that the rapper’s success is achievable only in the wake of luminaries such as Shakur. Tupac’s “Dear Mr. President” has become Ross’ “White House,” and the very connotation of “hustling” may’ve been lost in translation. Others may find the Carol City Cartel leader to have a natural progression from the Outlawz’ frontman. In a personal look at a fallen icon, Rick Ross shares his deep appreciation of Tupac, as well an analysis of the similarities and differences in the times, and the artists Hip-Hop has crowned. In the end, even Rick Ross agrees that Makaveli was the boss of all bosses.

AllHipHop.com: I know you were 18 or 19 years-old when it happened, but can you remember what your life was like when Tupac died, and your reaction to the news?

Rick Ross: I just came back from outta town, meetin’ a couple of my homeboys. We stopped in a gas station. When I walked in the gas station, the lady who was takin’ the money behind the cash register, she had tears runnin’ down her face. Automatically, I’m thinkin’, “Damn. We done walked into the middle of a robbery.” So I look around, and said, “Baby, what’s goin’ on?” She said that Tupac had just died. [pause] That whole day was just on pause for the rest of the day. We just went and rolled up with all of my homies, we got this lil’ park that we roll to if somebody we know passed. We’ll just blow and s**t. I went to the park, and everybody was already there like Tupac was one of our homies. We just set up and smoked weed and drank for hours.

AllHipHop.com: What was ‘Pac’s reach like in Miami? How did Southern Florida identify with him?

Rick Ross: ‘Pac ran the game, man! At the climax, it was Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. Tupac was always on the top of the game, man – just his aggressiveness and [his rhyming] about the struggle. Plus, his background and all that, it’s like you watched him grow. Down in Miami, everybody was ridin’ for ‘Pac.

AllHipHop.com: The term “hustle” or “hustler” has changed a lot in the last decade. With the Outlawz, Tupac had a great record in “Hell 4 A Hustler.” How do you think the term, the lifestyle, and the connotation have changed over the decade?

Rick Ross: Um…I ain’t gonna say it really changed, ‘cause it’s always gonna represent the same thing. It’s just that the people who have used it has changed over time. Tupac, he really represented the essence of the struggle, the heart of the hustle. To watch him be incarcerated and sign a deal on a small piece of paper, and come out and explode just to meet his requirements and move on, small things like that, that’s what I took from him. The work ethic: in two weeks, he recorded [All Eyez On Me], in seven days, he recorded Makaveli. To me, those are true definitions of a hustler, being capable.

AllHipHop.com: Do you have a favorite Tupac song, something that speaks personally to you?

Rick Ross: I love so much of his music, but when I listen to the Makaveli song, it’s weird, but "Just LIke Daddy". It’s like he did that personally for Rick Ross.

AllHipHop.com: Wow. In what sense?

Rick Ross: Just the whole vibe. When the song comes on, it’s like it’s player s**t, but the way he gets down, it’s authentic. He don’t overdo it, saturate it, or sugar-coat it. His music was just so realistic.

AllHipHop.com: When Tupac died, it didn’t seem that many people in mainstream Hip-Hop stood by his clique, The Outlawz. As you’ve built your Carol City Cartel, how would you feel if you were locked up or put in that position? Is there anything to learn from the way Hip-Hop treats its groups?

Rick Ross: Most definitely, man. Everywhere you go, you just realize that this is entertainment, but it’s real life. I know it’s hard for some people to understand that, but this is real life. When things like that happen, it just really shows you. Like Jay-Z said, “Where’s the love?” When you hear people ask those questions again and again, it let me know, being the n***a I am, it’s a vicious game. It’s chess, not checkers. I gotta be prepared for that. It’s part of my work ethic. It’s not only being hardworking and being committed to your music, but in this business, to all black entrepreneurs, I recommend you become a master thinker. You gotta prepare for those situations.

AllHipHop.com: Some critics were very hard on your album, particularly about the lyricism. Throughout his life, and after, critics also argue that Tupac was a rapper, not an MC —

Rick Ross: I don’t agree with them! I don’t agree with them, ‘cause being an MC is being able to deliver a message. And nobody could deliver a message better than Tupac. He had songs where he was just being so lyrical. [Rick Ross rhymes from Tupac’s "If I Die 2night"] “ Picturin’ pitiful punk n***as coppin’ pleas / Puffin’ weed as I position myself to clock G’s.” Every verse in that song started with different words of the same letter. He showed you right there that he was the best. That’s what The Boss here for!

AllHipHop.com: Certainly, Tupac rhymed with artists like C-Bo, Daz, Rappin’ 4-Tay and others who overtly rhymed about selling dope. But still, I was listening to “Changes” recently. In it, there’s that dialogue Tupac recreates, where he says, “I made a G today / But you made it in a sleazy way / Sellin’ crack to the kids / I gotta get paid / Well hey, that’s the way it is.” I could never figure out if ‘Pac is belittling the dealer or siding with society. As somebody who walks the line, what do you think?

Rick Ross: Nah. That’s what made him cool. What he did was, he put the pros and the cons in your face. So when you hustlin’ and you glorifyin’ it, just remember that ain’t the right thing to do; there’s a better way – that’s what he’s saying in the song. But the last thing he says is [basically,] it’s all about survival. He always put it right there for you.

AllHipHop.com: You worked with Daz and other people who knew ‘Pac. Have you ever learned anything interesting on him from these people?

Rick Ross: Yeah man, as soon as I got a chance to work with Daz, when he came into the studio I was workin’ in, he heard a few cuts of a Tupac mix CD I’m workin’ on, using some of his beats. Daz came in, and I was just askin’ him about ‘Pac. Once again, he touched on how ‘Pac would come to the studio with two hours to do three records. It just opened my mind up so much more; it made me expect so much more of myself. The quality of the music – his music still sounds the greatest to me.

AllHipHop.com: Rap-A-Lot Records just put out 2Face, a collaboration with Scarface and old ‘Pac vocals. Scarface has publicly removed himself from the release. As a fan, how have you felt on the posthumous releases since Makaveli?

Rick Ross: Um…there was a couple of ‘em I really wouldn’t agree with. To me, it’s simple: if I wasn’t a part of his program before he passed, I wouldn’t agree to do it. For other business reasons, other people do other things. To me, holding up the integrity of my brother, of my homeboy is more important than business or capitalizing off sales, but that’s just Rick Ross.

AllHipHop.com: No money involved, but if you could collaborate with Tupac on one of his or one of your songs, what would it be, and why?

Rick Ross: I might go back to the “Ambitionz az a Ridah.” That was one of my favorite ‘Pac cuts. The production was crazy. When he put his thing down, he most def let you know he was legendary.

AllHipHop.com: It was a hell of a way to open album, and I noticed you didn’t mess around opening up Port of Miami either…

Rick Ross: Yeah, I had to do it like that. I been waitin’ a long time for it. Came out, debuted Number One on Billboard charts, and my squad, Carol City Cartel, comin’ next. I’m just finna keep making good music, man.

AllHipHop.com: On your record, you’ve got “Hit U From the Back.” Tupac helped make love and sex records mainstream again with “Temptations,” “How Do U Want It,” and “Whatz Ya Phone #.” Do you think you learned anything from him on that?

Rick Ross: He showed you it was cool to reach out and address your female fans. Being a street dude, he gave you the blueprint on how to just be free and speak your mind – puttin’ it down how you put it down to music. When he did the “Whatz Ya Phone #,” he was like having the phone-sex with the chick – it was different, it was real. He kinda showed you you could do your thing like that.

AllHipHop.com: We haven’t seen you beef or battle. But as listener, what did you learn from the way ‘Pac handled his issues with people on the mic?

Rick Ross: On the mic, I loved it. I loved it! ‘Cause, growin’ up, I felt those same frustrations, and I still do to this day. I relate to his pain; I relate to his struggle. I understand when he was facin’ all the hate. Sometimes, you gotta lash out. I support dog.

AllHipHop.com: On Still I Rise, Tupac opened with “Letter to the President” – very politically charged. There’s not a huge correlation, but on your album, you’ve got “The White House.” Do you think that looking at these two records and what they’re saying shows us anything about how Hip-Hop has changed in the last decade, and what will it take to bring back people like ‘Pac?

Rick Ross: You really just gotta support artists and watch ‘em grow. ‘Pac, man, those are some real big shoes to fill because he was really educated in the background, and he really understood politics. He was more up on the f**kery than a lot of the dudes. But in my songs, I touch ‘em in a different way. I touch them differently, but I most def be havin’ issues like that on my mind. My next album is gonna touch on a lot more different things.

While most 22-year-olds are too busy making petty mistakes, Darryl Kevin Richardson II seems to have the wisdom and experience of a man who has seen much of what life has to offer. Luckily, even though the album is called Bred to Die, Born to Live, Richardson, better known as Lil’ Scrappy, is nowhere near being finished.

Some, however, thought that Scrappy’s recording career with Lil’ Jon’s BME label was finished when 50 Cent began courting the artist to G-Unit. Instead, Lil’ Jon, 50 Cent, and even Slim Shady have all amicably pitched in on this album to give Lil’ Scrappy the buzz he’s pushing for. With many moguls’ hands in one pot, Scrappy’s solo debut stands to be a breakout success. However, the man previously known for his Crunk history says he’s about to show just how real he keeps it.

AllHipHop.com: Your latest album Bred to Die, Born to Live, shows you stepping out beyond the Lil’ Jon sound we’ve known. Who worked with you on this one?

Lil’ Scrappy: I got Lil’ Jon on there of course, I got people from Memphis called Drum Squad, Ike Dirty [a.k.a] Issac Hayes III, he produced the single “Money in the Bank,” featuring me and Young Buck. JR from LA, he produced one of my other singles, “Living in the Projects.” Jazze Pha, Sha Money is there, Eminem… everybody.

AllHipHop.com: Where’s the album title come from?

Lil’ Scrappy: It’s just life. You born to die, but why the hell you got damn stress about dying out when you can just live? You know what I’m sayin’? That’s all that means.

AllHipHop.com: 50 Cent is executive producing the album, after a lot of speculation and whatnot. What can you say about that?

Lil’ Scrappy: If you did not know, G-Unit is the place to be, baby. We all got the family thing going on. Cookouts, barbeques at 50’s house,…he brought me here to put me in the video… it’s just loyalty. So why not make money and do family things at the same time? So that’s what that is right there, ’cause big homie showed me love and the rest of them [G-Unit] always showed me love like I’m their little brother, you know what I’m saying? So it goes down.

AllHipHop.com: But I am sure that family-business and business on a professional level don’t always go well together, it’s hard to separate the two at times…

Lil’ Scrappy: I mean, you gotta just separate it [and] as a grown ass man, and I do that. I just look at the situation like this: when it’s time to play, it’s time to play. When it’s time to work it’s time to work and I’m a worker. We just got a good work ethic where [we are just] all in [it] together and we work [hard]. It’s just a good environment to be around, a lot of money, good business people and just makin’ it happen.

AllHipHop.com: That collaboration with Eminem for your album, considering that he’s retired and has so much to deal with on his plate, how did you convince him to get on that track with you?

Lil’ Scrappy: He just made the beat for me, and me and 50 wrote the song. It’s just simple stuff, it was five, ten minutes, and it’s done.

AllHipHop.com: In your opinion, what do you feel is the most intense track on your album that you want people to pay most attention to?

Lil’ Scrappy: I got a song called “Like Me,” it tells my little story about growing up with my moms, [when] she [was] selling dope, being a pimp, my little cousin Brandon who got kidnapped a long time [ago] and murdered or whatever. All my little life struggles and all the s**t that I done been through to get here. The people that look at me, I don’t think they want to be in my position… they want to be in my position [from a celebrity standpoint] and to be like me, but I don’t think they want to go through what I did to get here.

AllHipHop.com: So is the album different than fans of “Headbussa” would expect?

Lil’ Scrappy: I want them to know I got real s**t to talk about. Not just jumpin’ up and down screamin’ out a whole bunch of s**t that don’t mean nothin’. I got real hardcore s**t, I got Crunk s**t and we got reality s**t. I call the album “half-sorrow, half-party.” Half my s**t be sorrow anyway, ’cause n***a be so stressed out. Then we got the Crunk s**t, [that’s the] whole party s**t. [I’m] just letting people know your boy is real. I’m not one of the hardest lil’ rappers they got out there, I’ll just tell you what I’ll do if you f**k me over, you know what I’m talkin’ bout? Not what I’ll do if you don’t do nothin’ to me.

AllHipHop.com: You’ve always been known to have an optimistic persona, especially with that incident with the police…

Lil’ Scrappy: I [also] got a song out there for all the po-po. All the po-po that don’t know I have a song for you baby. It’s called “Mr Police.” Police get to get away with a lot of stuff, black, white, Hispanic. They all have this thing about them that [makes them feel as though] their badge is the s**t. Take your badge off, take your [uniform] off, put on your regular clothes and come meet me in the street… it’s nothing. We can handle it like street, but police don’t want to handle it, they want to handle it. How could you lock somebody up and then beat on them. Take the handcuffs off, put your gun and your little stick down and fight!

AllHipHop.com: Well let me give you a scenario, for whatever reason you’re stopped by a black police officer, and when you ask him why he stopped you and if it was because you’re black, he says “I don’t see color.” How would you respond to that if he said that to you?

Lil’ Scrappy: [I would say] “You don’t see color, well then you must be color blind, ‘cause I’m black.” It’s not even the thing about race no more, it’s just that they don’t like their jobs so they go off on us. In South Beach, Miami, they told my brother when they locked him up that there was not supposed to be any n***as on South Beach… just whites. No Puerto Ricans, no Cubans, none of that. If I’m black, and I got a whole bunch of money, then that’s still not good. They locked up Lebron James, Juvenile, they had a 1009 people in there – half [with] money, half without money. They beatin’ on people and all kinda stuff and nobody gon’ do nothing about it. Why? ‘Cause they’re the police. If we beat their ass, it’s a year, two, three years in jail. If they beat our ass, [they’re told to] go home for a couple of days, “Get your mind right, come back and we’ll holla at you.” What is the basis?

AllHipHop.com: With everything that has happened to you in the last two years, is Bred to Die, Born to Live going to be a darker album?

Lil’ Scrappy: No, like I said, it’s half-sorrow, half-party. I can talk about the bad s**t all day. The f**ked up part about it is you gotta die, the good part about that is you get to live before that. Before I die, I’m gon’ live. I won’t say it’s dark, I say it’s half-dark, half-light.

AllHipHop.com: But you don’t fear death?

Lil’ Scrappy: [Pause] I mean… my only fear about death is leaving my little girl with nothing, you know what I’m saying? So I just want to leave [her] as much as I can leave her with. But hopefully, after this, man, it’s straight heaven, baby. Palm trees everywhere. Gold roads and s**t.

AllHipHop.com: What was the best track based on lyrical content that you ever heard in your life so far? Like it just really got you intellectually and made you really think about life?

Lil’ Scrappy: I think 2Pac’s “Staring at the World Through my Rearview.” That’s one of the song that kind of touched me, and that Eminem song [“Mockingbird”]. Like I said, during the time off, it’s my daughter, But when you gotta go, you gotta go and it kinda hurt sometime to leave your family [when] your little girl is sitting there [looking at you like,] “Damn, I’m part of your life too.”

AllHipHop.com: What do you think is missing in Hip-Hop right now, and what are you gonna do to try and bring change to that?

Lil’ Scrappy: I’m gonna make it good to be real again, you know what I’m saying? I’m gonna make it real smooth and gangsta to be real… I done did everything, sold dope, did a nine-to-five, fought, got fought. I’m a real dude, at the end of the day, you ain’t got to do none of that to be real, you just do you. I just want to make it good to be real and not hard…

A lot can be said of Lil’ Jon’s patience. Years before he was the Crunk kingpin that was parodied by Dave Chappelle, revitalizing careers for Ice Cube and E-40, he was a studio rats for So So Def. On So So Def All-Stars volumes, fans hear a pre-sunglasses Lil’ Jon as well as one of BME’s brightest artists today, Bohagon.

Between releasing his single “Wuz Up” and grinding on mixtapes, Bohagon plans to follow Jon’s steps to the limelight. With his Georgia Durt group and label, Bo’s got big plans, even before his Warner Brothers-distributed, Sunday’s at the Bootlegger hits shelves. But as the Atlanta underground of yesteryear continues to strike big numbers in the mainstream, Bo knows what he’s got.

AllHipHop.com: What’s up with you?

Bohagon: I can’t call it.

AllHipHop.com: What’s been going on with you, what projects are you working on right now?

Bohagon: I’m in the lab cooking up this album. I am about 85% done right now. It’s going to be some of the most amazing music the world has ever heard.

AllHipHop.com: Why are you taking that risk and saying that?

Bohagon: I feel like I got something to offer to the game. It ain’t all about trying to make a couple mil’. I bring good music to the game; I have great music.

AllHipHop.com: I’ve been a personal fan of yours for a while; tell the people how long you’ve been rapping?

Bohagon: About ten-15 years, I first been rapping [as a] semi-pro. I first hooked up with [Lil’] Jon in 1997 or 1998. At the time, we were working for So So Def, on the So So Def All Stars, Volume 2 and Volume 3. He kept me under his wing, I signed with BME like 2003, officially. Even before then, unofficially, I was with him.

AllHipHop.com: From 1997 to 2006, what has changed about you, your lyricism, your swagger, how would you compare yourself in ’97 to now?

Bohagon: I’ve learned a lot of other things outside of just rapping. I’ve learned how to perform, I learned how to construct songs, I’ve learned how to construct albums, I’ve learn music in general. I appreciate other forms of music. I extended my musical mind.

AllHipHop.com: Who were your influences?

Bohagon: I grew up on the greats. N.W.A., Too Short, E-40, UGK, and 8Ball & MJG. Coming closer to home, Outkast, Kilo, on that Southern rap.

AllHipHop.com: When your album drops, what is the flavor people can kind of expect from that?

Bohagon: See, the thing about Bohagon is that up until this point, I always featured on other people’s songs and albums. For the most part I was doing songs and not 100% Bohagon on the song. At the same time that made me versatile, it made me able to do all different types of music; gangsta music, pimpin’, conscious. Being featured with other artists allowed me to do a lot of different things. On the Bohagon album, you can expect a lot of versatility. I am going to do all different kinds of music. On this day, I might feel like baring my soul to the world, on the next day I might feel like some gangsta s**t, on the next pimpin’, after that I might feel like arguing with my girlfriend. I feel the best artists, their music contradicts itself. You never know what you are going to see from one day to the other.

AllHipHop.com: From your perspective, what do feel is the biggest problem wit Hip-Hop?

Bohagon: The biggest problem with hip-hop is the fact we make so much money off of it. Hip-Hop music is like an assembly line, instead of people being artist; the record company make you do what made so and so so much money. The artist they want to do what the person ahead of them did because they feel like it’s going to make them some money. The worst part of music is the assembly line aspect of it.

AllHipHop.com: With that said, who would you consider one of the better new artists within the last year, year and a half?

Bohagon: I am a big fan of Kanye West and T-Pain. There are a couple more cats that I appreciate but those pop up right now.

AllHipHop.com: What is your album to be entitled?

Bohagon: Sunday’s at the Bootlegger. I got a song on there with Bun B. I got my BME family, Lil Scrappy, big brother Jon, he produced a track. I got some produced by Bangladesh; I got a song with Jagged Edge on there. Drum Squad, E-40; it’s going to be amazing.

AllHipHop.com: Besides the album, what do you consider some of your major accomplishments in life so far?

Bohagon: Participating on a lot of other peoples stuff. I did the hook to “Damn.” That’s my voice on there. Even before I came in the game as a solo artist, I had participated on hits. I got my on label called GeorgiaDurt, I got some artists. I was able to line up a lot of different things, sit down and peep the overall game to see what I needed to bring to the game.

AllHipHop.com: What kind of music can we expect from your group Georgia Durt ?

Bohagon: It’s actually 100% of the music Bohagon wanted to do. Being in the music business a lot of times I never got to do 100% me. So, Georgia Durt is going to be 100% me. It’s going to be me more behind the scenes, but still in front.

AllHipHop.com: What’s the one thing you want to have definitely accomplished while you walk this earth?

Bohagon: One thing give the people some good music that they can appreciate. Be a good father to my kids, good son to my mama. I want to put myself in a position to take care of my family forever, stable financially forever. That is about it.

The Runners don’t look like two men with their ear to the streets. The Orlando-based production duo is more GQ than they are AllHipHop. Their unapologetic fashion sense is a little flashier and more form-fitting than two men ingrained in Hip-Hop typically have. That’s a risky move in an industry that places as much emphasis on image as it does on substance, but lucky for the Runners, success allows you to break the rules.

Friends since either man could spell Hip-Hop, Dru Brett and Mayne Zane made a loud debut on music charts this year. “Hustlin’” – the bass-heavy scorcher they produced for Miami street king Rick Ross – quickly became a hit, which has the duo in a good place right now. “Hustlin’” built a momentum that’s making the Runners’ phone ring more often than ever before. Everyone from trap star Young Jeezy to pop star Jessica Simpson is requesting their musical services.

Brett and Zane are clearly enjoying success, but the respect it brings has limitations. The Runners have endured criticism from journalists and Hip-Hop fans since “Hustlin’” first bubbled, with some claiming that their beats sound too similar. For every supporter of their biggest hit to date, there’s also a detractor comparing it to Lil’ Wayne’s “Money on My Mind.” The Runners spoke about the knock on their resume, and they had some choice words for naysayers. Brett and Zane are hearing a lot of talk, and they’re ready to send some of it back.

AllHipHop.com: T.I., Young Jeezy, and a few other artists had the “Hustlin’” beat, but never purchased it. How would things differ if someone besides Rick Ross used it?

Dru: I think it would have been a big record for anybody. Ross just knew that it was a hit record and ran with it. The fact that that record broke a new artist made it so much bigger than it was. People already knew who those other [artists] are and out of nowhere this guy comes out blasting all over the radio station and everybody’s saying, “Who did that? Who did that?” It brought us a lot more attention and also a lot of credibility because a lot of people tried to break Rick Ross and it took a special sound to do that.

Mayne: Dude was doing his thing for like…12 years.

Dru: Yeah; why didn’t it ever pop off until now? Obviously it was that creativeness between us and him.

AllHipHop.com: What do you say to critics who claim your beats sound too similar?

Mayne: Man, critics, we don’t listen to them because they doing their job and we doing our job. That’s our own sound. We have a wide range of genres that we can touch. We can touch R&B, we can touch New York artists, and we can touch the South, we can touch the West Coast. We just did a track with Young Jeezy that is like a sound that we never put out there before. People never heard this sound from us before. F**k the critics ‘cause they don’t know us.

AllHipHop.com: People also say you rely on the “Chopped & Screwed” sound too much.

Mayne: It all started with the screwed-up vocals and hooks, but those beats were us. We put those hooks in those songs. Some we took from recent songs and we just put a couple words and chopped it up, but most of those hooks we made. It’s not just putting a screwed hook on a beat; it’s that sound behind the beat.

AllHipHop.com: Some producers complain that artists ask them to reproduced hits. Since “Hustlin’” was such a big song, have you experienced that?

Mayne: All the time, man. All the time. That’s our job to stay creative and please the customer, please the artist, and then keep our reputation hot by coming up with something new. Presenting something new to them is our job to do. Like, yeah, we did this, but this is what we’re working on now. Take a listen and tell me what you think.

AllHipHop.com: Let’s go back a little bit. How did you guys link-up?

Mayne: We knew each other since preschool. <br<

Dru: I was actually in North Carolina, I was about 16 and Mayne was down in Vero Beach, Florida. We were on the phone and we kind of had creative ideas that were bouncing back and forth between both of us. So we came up with a plan on how we should approach the music business being that it’s such a difficult business to get into. We came up with an idea to structure our company correctly and decided to vibe together on everything we do.

AllHipHop.com: Did you work well together at first?

Dru: Yeah, because Mayne is more on the creative, musical side and I handle more on the business side, so we don’t step on each other’s toes.

AllHipHop.com: What happens when you disagree on how a beat should sound?

Dru: That doesn’t really happen. I don’t think that’s happened. I’m not going to mess up somebody else’s creativity because he could be taking something to a level where maybe I don’t see the vision at first, but then it all comes full circle later on.

AllHipHop.com: Mayne, who would you say influenced your style?

Mayne: Dr. Dre and anybody who came up with their own sound. All of the people before me who stayed in their own lane [like] Dr. Dre, Timbaland, Neptunes, and Scott Storch right now. Anybody who stays in their own lane and doing something new. Anybody that’s adding new material to the game by doing it their own way and not by copying the next man.

AllHipHop.com: What made you want to become a producer?

Mayne: I don’t know. That’s kind of like a question if you’re married or you got a girlfriend, “Why you like that girl?” You don’t know you just fell in love with her, you know what I’m saying? It just happened; it’s just in me.

AllHipHop.com: Your managers are DJ Khaled and DJ Nasty. How did that happen?

Dru: DJ Nasty was like the first person that believed in our talent. A little over a year ago, he passed our first track to Fat Joe [“Does Anybody Know”]. He was on the radio station in Orlando [102 JAMZ] and he had connections to the music business, so he kind of stepped us in the door; walked us in. After we kind of walked in, we started needing to expand our management to touch more people. Khaled was willing to jump on board and anxious to get things rolling quickly. And that was a good look because of his personal connections and he’s such a great person, such an inspiration to us.

AllHipHop.com: Is it strange because they’re producers too, so they’re kind of your competition?

Dru: It hasn’t really come to that point to where we felt competitive with them. They’re getting us so much work and doing so much for us that I really don’t have any complaints right now.

AllHipHop.com: What’s the worst thing you’ve encountered about the Hip-Hop industry so far?

Dru: I’d say the worst thing is dealing with people’s personalities. Certain people are difficult to deal with and you have to deal with them regardless if you want to or not.

AllHipHop.com: Have you guys had any lessons in Industry Rule # 4080 about record company people being shady?

Dru: Oh, absolutely. That’s just part of the business, so we deal with that on the professional level and handle everything that we need to handle. Whether you’re doing construction business or you’re running a shop or shoe store, you’re going to deal with shady people in the business. That’s just the way it is.

AllHipHop.com: What are some projects you’re involved in now?

Dru: We just did Trick Daddy, and we’re going to have a single coming out. We just did Young Dro and gave him two really crazy records. We just gave Bohagon a single and Fat Joe’s newest single that Flex dropped bombs on. We shot the video for DJ Khaled “Born N’ Raised” and we did a bunch of new records with Lil’ Wayne. I don’t even know how many we have on there.

Mayne: Young Jeezy too with Keyshia Cole. Hold up – Keyshia Cole and Travis Barker. Travis Barker from Blink 182 is gonna be playing the drums on there.

AllHipHop.com: Are you on branding your own stuff like with a mixtape or a compilation?

Dru: Yeah, we’re working on something. We’re going to focus more on our own artist and R&B artist right now. That’s a side of us most people don’t know about. We just did a song with Trey Songz that’s the title track to his album called “Trey Day.” We’re also going to do Ciara, Mario; we’re going to keep expanding into R&B. We do ballads and everything so that’s why when people say, “Oh they only can do that sound,” they have no clue. When they hear the Trey Songz record, or they hear the Mario record, they’re gonna be like, “Wow.”

AllHipHop.com: I can imagine that a year ago, your lives were very different. How do you think your lives will change in another year?

Dru: Even crazier than it is now. People are gonna see our R&B side, the Pop side. We’re going to be working with everybody from Jessica Simpson to Ashley Simpson to Maroon 5. Everybody that you can imagine.

Mayne: Just be on the look-out for The Runners in your Top 40 radio station.